Count Johannes. have made an exception in the Count's case, as he was an actor, was accustomed to com mit things to memory, and probably " had a good study," as the profession are wont to express it. The Count seems to have been rather proud of this case, and to have lost no op portunity of lugging it into court. He even introduced a reference to it on the famous Tilton-Beecher trial — not as counsel, but on a question of personal privilege. He is reported to have said : " May it please your Honor. One moment — as I am a counsel lor of the court, I believe I can avail myself of the courtesy which you have just now ex tended to me. In my absence yesterday, my brother Evarts, who is my friend, quoted from a Massachusetts report in reference to me, and as published by the press, most injuri ously. While I believe they published sim ply what took place, I discard from my mind the slightest intent on the part of my brother Evarts to injure me — I know he would not. I have the honor of the friendship of coun sel of both sides. In Massachusetts I was approaching a marriage with a young lady, and a reverend gentleman interposed a letter of libel upon me, and destroyed five visits to that lady. Important. And on the day be fore the marriage, in generosity, I burned that letter; and on the next day after my marriage he wrote another letter that he could prove what took place. I brought my action, and for these five visits alone the jury gave me $100 for each. For with that power of language which I have as well as Rev. Ward Beecher, one hour with a lady is equal to three months with mere clods of human ity. I wish to vindicate myself, and that my brother Evarts — I see Judge Porter there with melancholy thought — that he will up on occasion do me justice." Just how the Count broke into this trial does not appear, but it was probably as amicus curice. At all events he undoubtedly was heard with for bearance and courtesy by that accomplished gentleman, scholar and lawyer, the late
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Judge Neilson, who presided at that famous trial. Another action brought by the Count is George the Count Joannes v. Burt, 6 Allen, 236. This was an action of slander for words spoken by the defendant as counsel on the trial of the Count's suit for slander against Nickerson. This report is a great curiosity. The Count in his declaration averred that he was "by professional voca tions a public author of historical and other literary works, and a public lecturer, and public oratorical illustrator of the Sacred Scriptures, and the works of Shakepeare, for reputation, income, profits and emolu ments as exemplified by the annexed Ex hibit A." (This was a printed circular addressed " to committees of Lyceums, etc.," stating the " Public Orations and Discourses, written and pronounced in Europe and America by ' George Jones,' the Count Johannes, Imperial Count Palatine," and offering to pronounce them in New England for $100 each and his traveling expenses, and giving a list of gentlemen who had signed letters of invitation to him.) The Count also averred that he was a practicing attorney and counsellor in the courts of Massachusetts, in which " intellectual employ ments the unimpaired reason and the rea soning powers of plaintiff are a condition precedent," etc. Then he averred that defendant was an abolitionist, and therefore the enemy of plaintiff and his country, as "a public supporter of that ultra and san guinary creed," which he had "denounced in three public orations at Faneuil Hall, Boston (and before several thousands of his fellow citizens)." That the defendant in his address to the jury on said trial had charged that he, the Count, was insane, "diseased and possessed in plaintiff's own proper person with the most terrible of God's inflictions upon mankind, that of the infectious and transmissible physical and mental disease of insanity," "casting desola tion, misery and sorrow upon plaintiff, and
